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Paul Robinson (2) (1966–)

Auteur van Ethics Education in the Military

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Paul Robinson is Assistant Director of the Centre for Security Studies, and also Acting Director of the Institute of Applied Ethics, at the University of Hull.

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[Published by AAASS in "Slavic Review," December 2002]

Bolshevik narratives of Russia’s war between 1914 and 1917 obliterated the existence of the empire’s armies; the history of White armies likewise ended with their final defeat. Thus, the losers in Russia's Great War and its extensions in the East were rendered vestigial in the shaped memory of Soviet Russia, and indeed in most accounts of the clash between the imperial Germanic powers and France and its allies. Paul Robinson, a lecturer at the University of Hull, has set out to tell the story of the exiled White army and examine the significance of its members’ actions. His useful book combines organizational, social, and political history of the expatriate soldiers who attempted to sustain their military identity in the face of manifold pressures operating against their organization. Robinson used archival and published sources in Russia, France, and the United States, and completed the book without the support that normally underwrites ground breaking work, a remarkable achievement in itself.

The White army in exile was numerically a significant part of the post-1917 emigration. With a myth of deliverance and unity built on the “Gallipoli Miracle” (the army's evacuation to Turkey at the end of the civil war) at its origin, the organization emerged from destitute circumstances through a re-imposition of rigorous martial discipline and hierarchy, Robinson argues. That origin also separated those committed to a unique set of military values from many who preferred either repatriation or separation from service. During the early 1920s, the army organization was relatively effective in advocating the former soldiers' (and organization's) interests with host governments, successfully raised funds to support its members, and maintained political non-alignment from other elements of the Russian emigration. The White military leaders believed their military values -- honor, patriotism, and commitment to the struggle against bolshevism -- distinguished them from other émigrés. Succeeding leaders of the exiled White army refused to adopt political platforms or reconcile with monarchists or center-left counter-revolutionaries.
The army's central organization, ROVS, the largest of all the Russian interwar émigré organizations with branches throughout Europe and Asia, was the product of former generals; Wrangel, Kutepov, and Miller are tied closely to the fate of the military emigration. ROVS's most interesting characteristic was its long independence from Romanov heirs, a stance essential to its apolitical philosophy. The passing of the civil war-era leaders and increasing dissatisfaction with ROVS's work in the late 1920s led to the organization's splintering, a rise in internal intrigues and paranoia, simmering interest in emerging fascist movements, and the final disintegration of the military ethos (and the so-called White Idea) in the 1930s. Particularly interesting aspects of the White army's experience in exile are found in the such episodes as the initial voluntary associations that the generals forged among evacuees in the early 1920s; Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich's relationship with ROVS in the late 1920s; and Cheka/GPU/NKVD efforts to subvert ROVS and assassinate its leaders throughout the inter-war period.

The book's only shortcoming lies in its isolation from recent historical literature on Russia's Great War - civil wars continuum. The White movement, born in the Don Cossack region at the end of 1917, was the object of work available to Robinson that has reshaped discussion of the 1914-1921 period (most notably, by Peter Holquist and Orlando Figes). Robinson did not test his own findings particularly on the Cossack's behavior (and its voluntary repatriation in the early 1920s) against that new work. Robinson also notes that the Russian military emigration comprised two elements, the veterans of the Great War and those of the civil wars. This suggestion, one of the more interesting thing to be said about the Russian military emigration, in my opinion, is not elaborated. He is inconclusive about whether the White Idea that animated the military exiles throughout the interwar period evolved into something proto-fascist; his dissection of the philosophy is not informed by the work of MacGregor Knox on the central experience of the Great War Frontkämpfer in the rise of Nazism and Fascism. Finally, the annoyance of trying to determine "who did what" compounds interpretive shortfalls: the author's style consists of the passive voice, obfuscating agency at some crucial point in the story.
Its historiographic shortcomings notwithstanding, this book is an important source for all students of the White emigration as well as of Russia's civil wars. Researchers interested in the formation of voluntary associations will also find the rise and decline of the White army's society of interest.
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davrich | Jan 18, 2008 |

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